5 Easy Ways to Save Money Every Month
Tuesday, May 28, 2019, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
The United States is a highly consumeristic society, and our ancestors would shudder if they saw how much the average citizen wastes on a daily basis.
This waste is actually good for the economy, as it promotes more spending which ensures the economy continues to get a boost.
However, it’s not good for the individual and with a few simple changes it’s possible for an American family to save hundreds of dollars a month and thousands of dollars a year.
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Stop Wasting Food
Americans waste over a million tons of food every single week, and the scary thing is that the biggest wasters are the ones who eat the healthiest. The simple fact is that the more fresh vegetables and fruits you eat, the more likely you are to waste astonishing amounts of food.
According to official statistics, the average American household spends over $4,000 on food, more than $1,800 of which ends up uneaten and in the garbage. That doesn’t mean that you should stop eating fresh, but rather that you should start thinking more about the food you buy and the meals you cook.
Rather than letting vegetables go to waste, cook them and freeze them for later; rather than letting fruits and herbs go to waste, dry them or juice and freeze them. With grocery delivery services available nationwide, it has also never been easier to get frequent deliveries of small batches, allowing you to buy fresh and eat fresh before getting anywhere near those expiry dates.
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Eat In
The only thing more shocking than the amount of groceries we waste is the amount of money we spend eating out. Americans spend up to $3,500 a year eating out, from fast food stops on the way home to date nights and more. That’s a huge sum of money to spend, and simply by spending a month avoiding restaurants you could have $290 extra in your pocket.
Again, it’s not about abstinence. You don’t want family time or couples’ time to suffer. Instead, just focus on making better choices. Go for a picnic, put some of those extra groceries to good use, or save coupons so that your nights out are cheaper.
Simply by managing your grocery spending and limiting your dining spend you could save over $500 a month.
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Sell Unwanted Goods
If you have a habit of keeping your old tech, clothes and media, then you could be sitting on a goldmine, and one that is all but useless to you. The games that you have played, completed and no longer need could fetch you anywhere from $5 to $40 a piece depending on how recent they are; the designer clothes you no longer need could fetch even more; the tech that is obsolete to you could be worth hundreds of dollars to someone else.
Stop waiting around for those wanted goods to deteriorate in value. Sell them as soon as you decide you no longer need them and you could save yourself a fortune every single month.
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Stop Gambling
Some forms of gambling are tightly restricted in many US states, but this is gradually changing, with sports betting becoming available across the nation. As a result, this is taking the average gambling losses higher than they have ever been, with the average US citizen now losing over $1,000 a year gambling.
$200 of this goes on lottery tickets, which are available in most states and return a very poor win rate. The truth is, no matter how much you tell yourself that your winnings cover your losses, unless you’re very lucky or are a professional gambler, they don’t. That $1,000 average quoted above is not the amount that people spend on buying tickets and placing bets, it’s the amount they lose.
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Stop Buying New Tech
Smartphones, tablets and laptops are more expensive than ever if you want the latest models. The problem is, those models aren’t that different from the previous ones. There have been very few improvements in smartphone and laptop tech over the last few years, yet every year there is a new version released with a higher price tag, and as soon as these new devices are released, the previous ones drop by up to 30%.
If you buy refurbished or used, you could save even more. You’re not getting the latest goods, of course, but does it really matter when you could be saving in excess of $500 per device and buying something that is very similar?
The same applies to media such as films and video games. You could drop $20 on cinema tickets or a hard-copy of a recent film, or you could wait until it is shown on the streaming service that you’re already paying for; you could drop $60 on a preorder game, or you could save $10 to $20 by waiting for the actual release date and up to 50% by waiting for a couple months after that.
Time is your friend here and if you buy a lot of tech and other brand-new goods then a little patience could save you thousands of dollars a year.
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Josh Sanderson writes about marketing, personal finance and more for some of the Internet biggest websites. To see more of his work, click onto this guide on Clear One Advantage Reviews to reason some of his work.
